Israel airstrikes Iranian consular building in Syria, Iran vows response

Seven people, including a senior Iranian commander, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consular annex in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Monday, marking a major escalation in Israel's conflicts with its regional adversaries.

The Syrian Defense Ministry said the missile attack occurred at about 5 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) when Israel launched an aerial attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, targeting the building of the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement that seven Iranian military advisers died in the strike including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in its Quds Force. 

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad condemned the attack and stressed that the move would not affect Syrian-Iranian relations. 

Later, in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Mekdad condemned, in the strongest terms, Israel's "criminal" attacks and called them "a flagrant violation" of international law, particularly the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, which defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries.

Amir-Abdollahian, for his part, said the attack violated all international obligations and conventions, stressing that Israel would be responsible for the consequences of the action.

Iranian Ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari said the strike hit a consular building in the embassy compound and that his residence was on the top two floors.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hasn't commented publicly. But an IDF spokesperson has claimed the building hit was being used by the Revolutionary Guards, making it a legitimate military target.

"This is no consulate and this is no embassy," the Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told CNN, adding that it's "a military building of Quds Forces disguised as a civilian building in Damascus."

Condemnations

Iranians held rallies in Tehran to condemn the Israeli attack on Monday night. One of the protesters told CMG that the Israeli airstrike is an act of violation and Iran should hit back hard. 

In a statement released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry after the attack, ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani was quoted as saying that Iran, while reserving its right to take countermeasures, would consider its response to the attack and determine the appropriate punishment for the "aggressor."

Iran's UN mission described the strike as a "flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the foundational principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises."

Saying the strike was "a significant threat to regional peace and security," the Iranian mission urged the UN Security Council to condemn the attack and said Tehran reserved the right "to take a decisive response."

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah vowed to retaliate. "This crime will not pass without the enemy receiving punishment and revenge," the group said in a statement.

Muslim nations including Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also condemned the attack, as did Russia.

Noting that the attack was carried out in a densely populated metropolitan area with a high risk of mass civilian casualties, the Russian Foreign Ministry said such "aggressive" actions by Israel are "absolutely unacceptable and must be stopped."

Regional tensions

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington remained "concerned about anything that would be escalatory or cause an increase in conflict in the region" but did not expect the strike to affect talks on freeing Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

Experts were divided on whether the Monday attack would spark significantly greater violence.

Jon Alterman of Washington's CSIS think tank, said the attack probably reflected Israel's belief that such strikes are deterrents and make a wider conflict less, rather than more, likely.

"The Israelis are convinced that if they seek to hang back, the threat will grow and not diminish," he said. "They are persuaded that as long as they do something like this periodically, their adversaries will be deterred."

However, Osama Danura, a Syrian political expert, described the attack as an unprecedented escalation of Israeli aggression in the region, coming at a time when Israel's military operations have already inflicted a crisis in the Gaza Strip.

"The recent Israeli aggression on regional countries is unprecedented. This highlights the dangerous nature of Israel's actions," Danura said.

"The attack on diplomatic missions violates international laws, indicating a significant threat to the region. It is crucial to establish international cooperation to halt this escalation," he added.

(With input from agencies)